Reaction to the SalesForce/Radian6 Acquisition News

Those who have registered their reactions to the news yesterday that SalesForce is acquiring Radian6 say, for the most part, they aren’t surprised by the move.

Kevin York, senior client executive at Voce Communications (which announced that it had been acquired by Porter Novelli in February) writes on the firm blog that it’s logical.

“To me this is all about the demand for companies to incorporate social media into their existing ‘traditional’ CRM platforms and efforts,” he writes. “…That’s what I think this deal is about. It’s not about creating or joining some new market called Social CRM, it’s about social media moving deeper into the traditional, age-old business processes and operations of companies.”

On The Net-Savvy Executive, Nathan Gilliattsays he was more surprised by the price tag than the sale itself. Among the reasons for his lack of shock: Radian6 is becoming “the standard” for social media monitoring and “enterprise software” is “making a serious move to tie social media analysis to nuts-and-bolts business operations.”

The New York Times‘ Dealbook blog agrees, with a story titled “In SalesForce.com’s Deal for Radian6, a Nod to Facebook’s Rise.”

On the issue of price, AllThingsD says the numbers make sense when you consider that Radian6 will be making money right away. And Doug Henschen on InformationWeek.com believes SalesForce is looking to build a marketing suite.

“Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff suggested it’s a probable next direction for the company during a conference call on the acquisition. And it’s a crucial step for a vendor that wants to be known as ‘the enterprise cloud computing company,’ not just another SaaS-based CRM vendor,” Henschen writes.

Finally, to the point that we made yesterday about the attention that companies in this social media monitoring area are getting, it was announced today that Visible Technologies received $6 million in funding.